The Exhausted Writer
A popular advice all writers are given is to write every single day. As a struggling writer, I find this advice isn't really expedient.
Though practicing your art everyday helps hone your skills, actually writing every day is only a frustrating exercise.
A writer not only writes- they must read, research and find inspiration to work.
When they force themselves to write every day the result is often disastrous. The sentences are hackneyed, the characters don't seem believable and the story is just ribbons of plot tied shabbily to each other.
The main part of writing is inspiration that can come from anyone and anywhere. For me its always been music, but I don't always wake up feeling inspired.
There are days when I'm so mentally exhausted from doing research or working on chapters for my new fiction, that writing another chapter is just so daunting. I guess the brain needs a break too every now and then.
At this time, when my head feels like it's being baked, forcing myself to write will NOT produce a great piece I can be proud of.
It will be a jumble of messy plots that won't be connected to the story and I would have ruined my whole manuscript.
Instead of writing, I think it's important for the writer to take a little break. Take a long walk sans technology- no phone to take unnecessary pictures or selfies (a cringe-worthy word in my opinion) or check your email. It should be just you and the nature.
Listen to music, watch a comedy, just anything to relax the mind so that it can start producing good work again.
Also, use some time to research your story and learn new things you can add to the story and make it a more informative and entertaining read.
I do find however, that taking long breaks away from writing results in losing interest in the story, so these "breaks" should never last for more than 4-5 days in my opinion.
Writing is an endeavor and should be fun. In my experience, my readers quickly picked on all the parts of the story that I didn't have fun writing. It came off forced and didn't add anything to the story.
The parts and the chapters that I did have fun writing elicited a good response from my readers.
Writing is hard and it takes a lot out of the writer. The least a writer can do is enjoy themselves when they're working.
Because writing without passion and inspiration is just like living a life without fun and music.
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